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I live in an apartment complex with lots of neighbors. I’ll nod at someone and sometimes I get a nod back or sometimes nothing. Either way works. There is a couple that lives in the apartment below me. He smokes (this is a smoke-free complex) in the designated area but cheats and smokes in his apartment when it’s cold or rainy. I see no reason to be chummy with either of them.
Yesterday as I was unloading groceries the wife came up and mentioned that I could at least smile or wave at them. I pointed to my ears (who knows why) and walked on. I think she was very out of bounds. If I pay my rent and behave, I don’t think I have to fit her expectations. Am I wrong?
—Frustrated Upstairs (F.U.)
I feel like this story is missing one detail: What prompted your neighbor to confront you like this? Keeping to yourself is generally fine, and it seems unlikely that you’d antagonize anyone just by being quiet. Is it possible that you’re actually being…rude?
Are you ignoring these neighbors when they say hello to you? Shooting them dirty looks? Being a grouch? You don’t like these people and they’re sensing it, which means there is likely some sort of visible animosity on your end — even if it’s unintentional.
Now, if the animosity is because you’ve asked these neighbors to stop smoking indoors and they’ve ignored you, I can certainly empathize. But I’d stick to direct, productive measures — talking to them, talking to your building management — rather than passive-aggressive ones. Let them be the bad neighbors instead of you.
Regardless of what’s transpired before, here’s my challenge to you now: make nice with these people. Knock on their door, maybe with cookies, and have a friendly chat about the smoking. Consider the possibility that you might disturb them sometimes, too — upstairs neighbors are kind of famous for that — and ask if there’s anything you could be doing differently for them. You might find that these people are more accommodating of the lovely neighbor upstairs than the standoffish one. Good luck.
I acted in a senior thesis production last semester at my college. A month after the semester ended, one of my friends found an anime that matched the description of the play perfectly. I watched it, and entire scenes matched. The writer had told us he got influence from Japanese media, but in a Q&A session he cited a completely different manga for his inspiration. His play was clearly a direct adaptation from this other show.
I feel bad knowing he plagiarized and got a degree for it, but I am unsure if I should report it. It’s not something that directly impacts me, so I kind of feel like I’d be overstepping and taking action that would harm someone else’s future. On the other hand, it isn’t fair that he gets to take credit for someone else’s story when other students wrote incredible thesis plays. I’m not even sure what the school would do if they found out at this point, because he already graduated. Part of me wants to casually ask a professor what would happen if someone had plagiarized like that to see if I want to go through with it, but I really don’t know if this is just something I should let go.
Dear Conflicted Thespian,
You seem 100% certain that this guy plagiarized, so maybe the evidence really is that compelling. But I should point out that plagiarism accusations in the arts world are often not so clear-cut. It’s pretty common for artists to engage in parallel thinking — seeing similar things out in the world that inspire similar stories, often told in similar ways. It’s also fine to pull inspiration from a work so long as you don’t straight-up copy it. Young artists fail at striking that balance all the time, not because they have nefarious intent, but because they’re still learning.
It’s a murky, messy, vulnerable thing to become an artist, and the process is better left to classrooms than academic hearings. For me, any shred of doubt about this would be reason enough to stay out of it.
Also: Even if this guy did knowingly plagiarize, the only real victim of that decision would be himself. There aren’t many professional or financial upsides to holding an arts degree — I say this as someone who has one! The only good reason to study the arts is to develop your own craft. If he chose to deny himself that opportunity, that’s a shame and a waste of his money. His punishment will be that he’s a lesser artist for life, and that is punishment enough.
Speaking of being a bad artist, here’s a drawing I did of a turtle that is also a hamburger.
His name is Hamburtle. Back to the advice!
My boyfriend (27) and I (26) have been dating for six years. He frequently has problems at work. Any job he’s ever had (be it restaurant jobs, IT work, delivery driving, etc.) he will complain for literally so long.
Now, I’m a patient person. I will listen to a problem and nod along with the rest of them. But I work in medicine and I listen to people complain literally all day. People LOVE to complain. So, after work, when my boyfriend rants for an hour about ‘Mark’ in marketing and how the communication channels are different now, I lose my sh*t.
I usually just say something along the lines of, “I’ve hit my limit, no more work talk.” Sometimes I walk away, too. Do you have any tips on how to stop the constant complaining once and for all?
Dear Dating A Workaholic,
It’s good that you’re honest in the moment when you’ve reached your limit, but I think a broader conversation about this is in order. “I’ve had enough work talk tonight” is a different type of feedback than “I’m struggling with a recurring issue in our relationship.” You’ve told him the former many times, but I don’t think you can expect meaningful change until you express the latter.
So sit down for a chat — ideally at a time when you’re not feeling heated — and try to establish some guardrails around work talk in the relationship. I assume you’d agree that the goal shouldn’t be zero complaining; if there’s something weighing heavily on your partner, you should know about it. The task before him is to distinguish the substantive stuff worth sharing from the petty venting best saved for coworkers at lunch.
And you have a task, too: Let him fail at striking that balance sometimes. He copes with his workday by griping; you cope with your workday by tuning out gripes. Neither approach is inherently right or wrong. What matters is that you can each articulate your own needs, and leave a little bit of wiggle room for the other’s.
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